Narco Terrorism

Ehrenfeld contends that Soviet client states and various terrorist organizations are the world's dominant narco-terrorists, using the ill-gotten gains of drug trafficking to undermine democracies. Judging by the evidence she assembles, Castro has used narcotics profits to arm Colombian and Nicaraguan guerrillas; Bulgaria peddles heroin to supply weapons to the PLO; drugs, Lebanon's ``single most important export,'' fuel that country's warring factions; and Peru, the world's leading producer of coca, may soon be subverted from within by drug pushers. Syria, the Sandinistas, Bolivia and the PLO are among the leading narco-terrorists identified in a stunning expose. Ehrenfeld, a criminologist at New York University School of Law, looks at the conflict between Jamaican drug gangs and the white Mafia in the U.S. Excoriating both the American left and right for failing to deal adequately with the drug epidemic, she raises important issues that many liberals and conservatives alike prefer to ignore. (Oct.)